The present invention relates to the processing of products and more particularly to a product processing system including a printer for imprinting price information on the products.
In recent years much progress has been made toward automating the checkout process employed in stores of the supermarket type. Most stores will employ checkout clerks who, after finding a price on a product, manually enter prices and simple product information into a register. However, automated systems have been developed in which an automatic label reader detects coded symbols carried on the products. These patterns of symbols, which differ for each different product, are converted into electronic signals which are applied to a computer wherein current prices are stored for all products carried in the store inventory. Signals identifying the product and the price for the product are applied to a register which totals the prices and typically prepares a list or tape of the prices and abbreviated product designations.
There are several recognized advantages to such automated checkout systems. A consumer's checkout time is significantly reduced since the checkout clerk does not have to find and manually enter product and price information into a register. All the clerk has to do is move the product symbols past the automatic label reader which may scan the symbols through a viewing window in the surface or deck of the checkout stand. The chances of human error inherent in the manual entry of prices into the register are also reduced. Also, since the prices employed in the totalling process are stored in and retrieved from computer memory, it is not necessary to mark each individual product on the shelves. A single sign attached directly to the shelves will indicate the current price of the product to the consumer.
Eliminating the requirement that individual products be marked should result in substantial labor cost savings for a store since the manual marking process is time consuming and often futile as products may need to be re-marked one or more times to reflect price changes occurring after the products are placed on the shelves. Also, manual marking of prices on individual products increases the chances that products will be wrongly marked to the detriment of either the consumer or the store.
Another advantage of automated checkout systems of the type described is that the detailed product information fed to a store computer upon scanning the labels carried on the products may be used in the automatic re-ordering and control of store inventory.
However many advantages automatic checkout systems may have for stores, the consumer acceptance of such systems has been less than complete. One reason is that consumers are accustomed to seeing prices printed on products and to remembering such prices by associating them with the product shape, size or container appearance. Consumers find this useful in comparison shopping. Since a consumer is not as likely to remember a price which appears only on a cash register tape, comparison shopping is made more difficult.
Another reason why consumers may not be more readily accepting automated checkout systems, is that the consumer is basically forced to accept a store's representation that the price appearing on the shelf sign is the same price stored in the computer memory and used in the register. It may not be particularly helpful to most consumers that prices of products being checked are momentarily displayed on a register since most consumers would have difficulty in remembering whether the price displayed on the register is the same price which appeared on the shelf sign.